Return to sender

Last week, the Senate “returned” five judicial nominations to the White House. As Jonathan Adler at NRO’s Bench Memos explains, unanimous consent is required to hold nominees over during a recess, and apparently some Senators did not provide their consent for the nominees in question — Terrence Boyle, Jim Haynes, William Myers, Michael Wallace, and Randy Smith. The president can, and presumably will, resubmit each of these nominations, so the move is mostly symbolic. However, at least some of these nominees appear unlikely to be confirmed. It seems clear, moreover, that at least some of the “lost” nominees would have been confirmed but for the gang of 14 deal.

Finally, it is clear that but for the efforts of the preening terrorist rights advocate Lindsey Graham, the highly qualified and patriotic Jim Haynes would long ago have been confirmed.